


This Is Definitely A Kissing Story

by Selenay



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Kissing, M/M, Romance, Romantic Comedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-13
Updated: 2012-10-13
Packaged: 2017-11-16 05:43:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/536131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Selenay/pseuds/Selenay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AKA Five times Coulson kissed Clint on a mission (and one time it wasn't a mission).</p><p>Written for <a href="http://cc-feelsmeme.livejournal.com/1635.html?thread=166755#t166755">this prompt</a> on the cc-feelsmeme.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Kiss of life

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a short little prompt fill to loosen the writing muscles while working on the edits for something else. It kind of morphed into a not so short fic that took me two weeks to write and nearly a month to edit. Oops?

Clint Barton's breath hung in the air, ice crystals glittering in the bright sunlight.

"You know, if you'd asked me this morning I would have said that 'instant winter' is a really crap superpower." Clint released an arrow and glared as an ice-creature shattered and instantly reformed. "Now, I'm going with 'crap but surprisingly effective superpower'."

"Those snowmen down there?" Stark said over the sound of his repulsors. "Don't let them throw stuff at you. Those snowballs dented the suit. How the fuck do snowballs dent an iron suit?"

Central Park had been turned into a winter wonderland filled with murderous snowmen, ice creatures with razor-sharp blades instead of hands and things that Thor swore weren't frost giants but were big, blue and very cold. At the centre of the devastation there was a slim man dressed in a long, white fur coat. He had called himself Lord Snow (and apparently saw no irony to that at all) and was conducting his monsters with the flash and style of a maestro.

So far none of the Avengers had been able to get close enough to do anything about him even though he had to be the source of it all.

Somewhere out in the park was a SHIELD van containing Coulson and, Clint very much hoped, some of SHIELD's arctic survival gear. As it had been a warm sunny day when they got the call out, he was wearing his usual uniform and he'd lost feeling in his toes ten minutes ago.

That wasn't a good thing when he was thirty feet up a tree.

The tree thing was as much about staying out of range of the ice creatures as it was calling out locations and directing the team. Not being able to feel the gashes on his leg or down his back was the one good part about the incipient hypothermia.

Natasha was fighting a small group of ice creatures and she suddenly swore viciously in Russian and said, "Guys, we've got a problem, these things are multiplying!"

She was right: Clint's next arrow shattered something shaped like a bizarre cross between a wasp and a goat shaped from clear ice and, instead of reforming, new creatures grew out of the pieces. In half a minute there were a dozen new ice creatures to replace the one that he had shot.

"OK, new plan," Steve announced. "Nobody break the ice things."

There was a loud smash as the Hulk stomped on three of them and a moment later he was surrounded by fifty new ice creatures. His roar of rage was audible throughout Central Park.

"Great plan, Cap, really workable," Stark said, melting two snowmen with bursts from his repulsors.

"Stark, you and Thor need to get a drop on this guy."

"Yeah, love to, but kind of busy over here." Two more snowmen melted and Stark had to swerve hard to avoid a swipe from one of the definitely-not-frost-giants. "If you can see an opening, I'll be all over it."

There were five giants around Lord Snow, all at least twenty feet tall and the largest on the field. Beyond them were ranks of ice creatures, forming an impenetrable barrier to anyone approaching on foot. Clint watched the giants for a moment and allowed himself a small smile.

"Stark, Thor, try going up high and dropping straight down really fast," he said. "You've got a small gap where Snow hasn't overlapped the reach of his giants completely."

"How small a gap?"

Clint shrugged. "Small."

"It's better than nothing," Steve said. "Try it."

It would have been a great plan if, as Stark and Thor descended, Snow hadn't made a dramatic gesture and created his largest giant yet in a blast of frozen air and ice crystals. Even that might not have been an issue if it hadn't appeared a couple of feet from Clint's tree, roaring its rage and searching for the closest thing to rip up and throw.

Unfortunately, the nearest thing was Clint's tree.

Clint wrapped his arms around the branch he had been sitting on as his tree was suddenly ripped out of the ground and waved around like an oversized club. The giant roared and stomped, shattering ice creatures all over the place. Clint could hear shouting and curses on the comm as Steve, Coulson and Natasha realised what had happened.

The world was moving around him at a dizzying pace as the giant gestured with the tree. There was no to chance to let go and drop off without risking serious injury because he couldn't tell which way was up anymore.

Just as Clint was resigning himself to losing his lunch from the violent roller-coaster motions, the giant launched the tree into the air. There was a long moment where Clint was in free-fall, his only contact with anything the rough bark against his arms.

Then the tree landed in the Central Park Lake, smashing through the ice that had formed over it. Shockingly cold water surrounded Clint, forcing all the air out of his lungs. He released his hold on the tree but he couldn't stop himself trying to take a breath and water flooded his lungs. His arms and legs were too cold, too sluggish, and he couldn't force them to work properly.

The icy cold settled into every part of his body, dragging him down into darkness.

***

Clint clawed his way back to consciousness and promptly vomited lake water everywhere. His head and throat hurt and he was so cold that he could barely feel anything.

Someone helped him to roll over slightly so that he could cough and gag more of the lake water out and then he was eased over to lie back against someone's legs. A thick, fluffy jacket was wrapped around him and then he was being enfolded with strong arms and pulled closer to his rescuer's chest.

He opened his eyes and Clint probably should have guessed that it was Coulson holding him. It was always Coulson that pulled him out of messes.

"Hey, boss," he said, or tried to. His face felt numb and he couldn't get much traction on the whole breathing and forming words thing.

"Shut up, Barton," Coulson said with that fond edge that meant Clint wasn't actually in trouble yet.

"How did I-?"

Coulson nodded to one side and Clint turned his head just enough to see Thor nearby, his hair and cape already stiff with ice.

"Friend Clint!" Thor boomed. "The Son of Coul is proficient with the kiss of life and revived your lifeless body."

"I didn't know you cared, sir," Clint said, or tried to say but his mouth wasn't working properly.

Apparently Coulson understood hypothermic babblings. "I don't, but your training was expensive and I'm not recording your death as 'misadventure by tree' no matter how many times you seem to end up falling out of one."

"In my defence, the tree fell with me this time."

"That is not a defence. That's an excuse."

"Same difference."

Coulson rolled his eyes. "How are you feeling?"

"Bit chilly."

Clint's brain was slowing down and getting foggy, but he knew that it wasn't a good sign that he was starting to shiver less. Feeling bone-achingly cold was actually a good thing with hypothermia, he remembered that from training.

"We've got medics on the way as soon as everything calms down a bit," Coulson said.

"Sounds good."

There was suddenly silence and Clint realised that he had been ignoring the sound of the fight since he woke up.

"Right on cue," Coulson said quietly. "Won't be long now."

It was getting harder to stay awake and Clint kind of hated that Coulson was, for once, looking worried and it was his fault.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

"There's nothing to be sorry for, Barton. Yet. Just don't make me write you up for dying in a very stupid way and you'll be fine."

"I'll try, sir."

Then there were voices around him and hands pulling and tugging at him and warm blankets. They never mentioned the fact that Clint hung onto Coulson's hand all the way to the hospital despite the best efforts of the medical staff to separate them.


	2. Buddy breathing

Clint sometimes wondered how he had ended up with a life where waking up strapped to a chair in a dungeon wasn't actually the weirdest thing to happen over the course of a week.

In fact it was a depressingly normal thing to happen.

Admittedly it had become a slightly less regular event since joining the Avengers, but really, having a life where you had a mental "no kidnapped and strapped to a chair incidents for x days!" count was not normal.

It had been eighty-three days, if anyone was interested. Well, it was zero now but Clint had been quite proud of the eighty-three kidnap-free days. Stark and Natasha were going to laugh themselves sick when they rescued him.

This was a particularly good kidnapping attempt. Clint's chair was bolted to the floor, the straps were impossible to get out of without some help and so far nobody had come to gloat, interrogate or threaten. That was usually where people made their mistake: a good gloat could be distracting and Clint had often used it to his advantage in an escape plan. It was actually a bit worrying that he had been awake for over an hour and nobody had even come to check on him.

He firmly put all scenarios of the abandoned to starve to death variety into a mental box and drop-kicked it to the back of his psyche.

Clint vaguely remembered the events leading up to this. There had been some kind of thirty foot-tall metal octopus and a big group of HYDRA goons getting destructive in Midtown. He and the other Avengers had mobilised quickly and they were beginning to turn the tide and make some headway. Then Steve had been pinned down by some HYDRA guys and Clint had gone to help and then...nothing.

Gas. They had to have been gassed.

"Fucking HYDRA," he muttered under his breath. "Always with the gas and the hostages and the...fuck. Steve."

Right. Yes. He probably wasn't the only person that HYDRA had taken. And if he wasn't the only one and no one had come to threaten him, then Steve had been the target and Clint was just the leverage point.

Clint groaned. That was a scenario he liked even less than the starving to death one. It was one that usually ended up with lots of pain, blood and sometimes important body parts going missing. He was kind of attached to all of his parts.

Just as he was starting to think that things couldn't get much worse, they did.

Chutes opened in the walls around him and water started pouring in. Within a couple of minutes the water was lapping at his ankles and continuing to rise.

"Oh, this is much better," Clint muttered, tugging at his restraints. "Drowning. My second favourite way to die. Right after freezing."

Inch by inch, the water crept up his legs, to his waist and further up to his chest. It wasn't particularly cold water and it seemed clean, but that wasn't the point. Drowning in clean, slightly warm water was no more fun that dying in a frozen dirty river.

As the water reached his throat, there was the sound of an explosion somewhere in the distance and then a loud clang drew Clint's attention upwards.

Phil Coulson looked down at him from an open trapdoor.

"Barton, how do you get yourself into these things?" Coulson asked.

"Natural talent, sir," Clint said, feeling incredibly relieved.

"I'd prefer it if you directed your natural talents elsewhere," Coulson said. "Maybe into something safer. Like flower decorations."

Clint shrugged. "Sir, after seeing Nat's idea of a flower arrangement I don't think that's a safer hobby." The water was beginning to lap at his lips. "Can I get a bit of help down here?"

"The dry-cleaning costs are coming out of your salary," Coulson said and a moment later there was a splash behind Clint.

The sudden wave surge sent water up Clint's nose and he spluttered, accidentally swallowing a large gulp of water at the same time. Tilting his chin up kept the water out of his mouth but it was only going to work for another minute or so.

"You might want to hurry, sir," Clint said.

There was no reply but a moment later Clint felt Coulson's fingers on his arm, tugging and testing the restraints. Hands against his leg told him that Coulson was checking those restraints and he felt Coulson's fingers slide under the band around his chest just as the water covered his mouth completely. Clint took a deep breath through his nose and then it and his ears were submerged as well.

Coulson broke the surface, breathing hard, and Clint could see him talking but there was water in his ears and it was muffled. Clint shook his head to signal that he couldn't understand and Coulson nodded.

Through hand gestures, Coulson somehow managed to convey that it would take him a few minutes to get Clint out of the chair. It was probably a good thing that Clint couldn't talk because he would been swearing a blue-streak and Coulson always looked disapproving when he did that.

Coulson took another deep breath and dived down. The water crept up further, to the bridge of Clint's nose and then over his eyes. He looked down and could see Coulson swimming near the floor, feeling along the bolts holding the chair to the ground. Stars were starting to swim in Clint's vision when Coulson looked up and his eyes widened.

Immediately Coulson pushed away, swimming to the surface. There was no way to see what he did but Coulson was back in a couple of heartbeats, gesturing madly. Clint's vision was starting to go grey at the edges so he released his lungful of air in an explosive rush and then Coulson was there, his hands holding Clint's face still. Coulson's lips were cool and Clint opened his mouth instinctively.

Feeling warm air forced into his lungs was weird but Clint reasoned that it was much better than drowning.

Coulson's lips on his was even weirder at first. The weirdness factor decreased a lot as Coulson repeated the breath sharing thing a couple more times. When Clint felt Coulson's hands on his face again, he was already anticipating the way that Coulson's lips would warm up as they pressed together.

Clint didn't know where the tiny pang of disappointment came from when Coulson drew back to signal "OK?".

He watched as Coulson dove down and began carefully picking the lock that held the restraints in place. Any thoughts of Coulson's lips against his were firmly pushed to the back of his mind.

When the restraints suddenly released all at once and Clint began floating to the surface, he absolutely did not think bad things about Coulson's competence. Not even if he had been kind of looking forward to Coulson and the thing they were doing that wasn't kissing but could be.

Clint took several deep breaths when he broke the surface and kicked his legs to stay in place. There was a splash as Coulson appeared and Clint swallowed as he realised that his eyes had strayed immediately to Coulson's mouth.

Fuck. Talk about inappropriate. This was his _handler_ (ex-handler, a sneaky part of Clint's brain prompted) and what he had been doing was about saving Clint's life, nothing more.

A rope slithered down to hit the water with a small splosh and Natasha's popped her head over the edge of the trapdoor, smirking cheerfully.

"Having fun down there?" she asked.

"Not really," Coulson said.

"Pity," Natasha said, not meaning it at all. "You missed a pretty nice fight up here. We've got Captain Rogers - need a hand getting out of there?"

As Clint was pulled out of the dungeon on the rope, he decided that this entire mission was getting filed under "fucked up" and forgotten about completely.


	3. Fever dreams

Clint was starting to strongly suspect that the entire world was laughing at him. It was the only explanation for his current situation: sealed in a small metal capsule with Coulson.

That wouldn't have been too bad. They had been in tighter spots. Literally: that time in a coffin somewhere outside Seattle came immediately to mind. Stark and Banner were working on getting the capsule open and Clint was trying not to think about how he had ended up here because it was so ridiculous it would be SHIELD gossip fodder for months.

The part making the whole trapped in a small metal box with Coulson thing worse was that just before they got locked in, the giant cactus creatures they had been fighting had stung Coulson on the shoulder.

Banner assured them that the toxin wasn't fatal, but it would be painful and the fever was going to take several hours to break. Clint was mostly just glad that it hadn't been some kind of alien sex pollen or something crazy because sitting in an enclosed space with a feverish Coulson was bad enough.

A grabby, gropey Coulson would have been torture and Clint had only a limited amount of moral fortitude.

He had read about moral fortitude in one of Natasha's really crappy romances that she pretended not to read. It sounded like a cool thing to have in this kind of situation.

There was very little space in their prison, not enough to stand or lie down comfortably. There were windows near the top of the capsule and every now and again Natasha or Steve held up signs that said "We're still working on it!" or "Don't panic!" and waved at them. Clint flipped off the "Don't panic!" sign each time because it wasn't as funny as Natasha thought it was.

Steve looked completely confused when he caught Clint doing it.

With so little space work with, Clint was sitting on the floor with his legs stretched out and Coulson was sort of curled up next to him with his head on Clint’s thigh.

Stark was going to have so much blackmail material when this was over. Particularly the photos where Coulson was hugging Clint around the waist and trying to bury his face in Clint's stomach.

Clint carded his fingers through Coulson's hair, trying to settle some of the restlessness. Sweat dotted Coulson's face and his cheeks were flushed from fever. The air in the capsule was getting warmer as time went on and Clint hoped that Banner had been right about the vents being enough to stop them suffocating.

He shifted slightly and Coulson groaned, squirming round to find a more comfortable position and coincidentally grabbing onto Clint's belt and tugging.

"Sir, I kind of need that," Clint said, "and you're going to regret this later if you don't stop."

Coulson muttered something too quiet for Clint to hear and seemed to sink deeper into sleep. Clint moved his hand to rub soothing circles on Coulson's back, which seemed to help a bit because Coulson stopped shifting uncomfortably every few seconds. He even sighed.

There was a quiet ding and Clint looked up to see another sign at the window that read, "10 minutes! Promise!"

The sign was replaced with Thor's anxious face. Clint gave him a tired thumbs-up, which seemed to be enough because Thor disappeared.

"Ten minutes, sir," Clint said. "Just got to hold on for ten minutes then we can get you some medical attention. Maybe a bucket of Tylenol or something."

Whether it was his words that woke Coulson or something else, Clint was suddenly pinned by intense, fever-bright blue eyes staring up at him. Coulson half sat up and shifted to sit draped across Clint's lap and then collapse against his chest.

"Yeah, sir, you're going to regret this so much when you're better," Clint said. "Nat's probably snapping pictures right now."

Coulson hooked a hand around Clint's neck and blinked at him owlishly.

"Hello, sir," Clint said. "You're not well right now, sorry about that, but we're doing everything we can to get you out of here."

There was little sense in Coulson's eyes and Clint wondered what he was seeing in his fever dreams. Shivers still shook Coulson's body and the heat that he was generating was starting to make Clint a little feverish himself.

He hoped that whatever the toxin was that currently held Coulson hostage wasn't transmissible. The last thing they needed was both of them getting sick in this tiny little box.

That thought got chased away a moment later. Coulson's tongue flicked out to lick his lips and Clint called himself ten different kinds of bastard for the spike of lust that shot through him. This was definitely another mission to file under "fucked up, don’t think about it" except Clint wasn't sure it would be easy to forget.

Any thoughts of forgetting went away when Coulson kissed him.

Coulson's lips were too warm, hot from the fever, and Clint tried to pull away but he was caught, trapped by the hand on his neck. When he felt Coulson's tongue lick against his mouth, Clint told himself not to respond but opened anyway and allowed the kiss to deepen.

A loud clunk and a sudden rush of cool air made Clint freeze. He looked up to find that the side of the capsule was being pulled away by Stark and Banner. Stark looked like his eyes were about to bug out of his skull.

Clint managed to extract himself from the kiss and he thought that he only managed it because Coulson chose that moment to drift back into sleep. Coulson sighed quietly and rested his head on Clint’s shoulder.

“Barton, what-“

Stark broke off when Clint held up a hand and glared at him. It was surprisingly effective and would probably never work again. A moment later a team of medics swarmed over them and began pulling and prodding at Coulson.

Clint kind of hated the fact that he missed having the solid weight of Coulson’s body leaning against him.

It only took the team a few minutes to get Coulson onto a gurney and into a chopper to take him back to base for proper medical care. It never paid to assume that quick field assessments were right and nobody was a hundred per cent certain that the cactus creatures’ sting was non-lethal. Stark waited until Clint was alone, leaning against the capsule and feeling completely exhausted, before saying anything.

“So, you and Coulson,” Stark remarked with a wide smirk.

Clint put on his fiercest glare, the one that even Natasha backed away from. “Nothing. Happened. He was delirious. Got it?”

“Whatever you say,” Stark drawled. “Just thought I’d note, you had all your faculties and that didn’t look-“

“Fuck you,” Clint said and walked away.

***

The next morning, Clint reluctantly went to see Coulson in medical. He had spent most of the night trying out various speeches on the theme of “Sorry, I’m a terrible person, didn’t mean to take advantage of you” and so he was surprised to see a welcoming half-smile on Coulson’s face when he arrived.

Coulson looked pale and exhausted but the fever had obviously broken. His eyes were clear and sensible and Clint absolutely did not think about how beautiful they were.

Fuck. His brain was a traitor.

Clint hesitated for a moment because none of the scenarios that he had practised and planned for included Coulson looking calm, serene and, most important, completely unaffected by whatever the hell had happened in that capsule.

In the end he settled for cautiously saying, "You're looking better, sir."

Coulson's expression didn't change. "I'm feeling better. The doctors assure me the toxins are out of my system and no permanent damage was done."

"That's good news."

There was an awkward silence before they both spoke at once.

"Sir, I-"

"Barton, if I-"

Yeah, this was going well. Clint stifled a snort and gestured for Coulson to speak first, figuring that at least he'd know the score this way. Maybe the score would be one where they agreed never to be in the same room together, but it would at least be a plan.

Coulson didn't quite meet his eyes. "Barton, I don't remember much after I got stung, but if I said or did anything while I was...compromised-"

"You didn't," Clint said quickly. "Well, there may be a couple of pictures floating around but I swear, it's not what it looks like. There wasn't much floor space and you slept through most of it."

It was totally what it looked like, but Clint wasn't about to say that because the relief on Coulson's face was so obvious. If he remembered any of it, he was obviously embarrassed and Clint wasn't quite bastard enough to make Coulson feel worse. Not about that, anyway.

"I assume it was Stark taking pictures?"

Clint smiled for the first time since entering the room. "You guessed wrong. Natasha."

Coulson raised an eyebrow. "That's unexpected."

"She's probably saving them for blackmail material."

"I thought she had plenty already."

"You know Natasha, there's no such thing as over-prepared."

This time the brief silence wasn't awkward. It was almost like their normal time together, sort of quietly companionable. Clint told himself that this was fine, he wasn't going to dwell or mope, this was absolutely fine.

He'd file the last two days into a box somewhere deep in his mind that he would never look at again because he didn't need to remember the way that Coulson's mouth tasted or that tiny noise he made when a kiss got really good.

"So, Barton," Coulson said, "can you tell me how we ended up locked in a small metal box for four hours yesterday?"

Clint swallowed and forced himself to calmly walk to the chair next to Coulson's bed. "It's a funny story, sir."


	4. Maintaining cover

Clint did really well at not thinking about Coulson in a kissing context for an entire two days. Then Coulson came back to work and Clint dropped off a report that was only a day late and Coulson smiled at him.

It wasn't a wide smile, more like a slight curve of his mouth, but it made the skin around his eyes crinkle and Clint was gone. His stupid, traitorous brain conjured up an image of how Coulson might look if Clint leaned down right then and kissed him, which didn't help Clint at all as he fumbled his way through an unconvincing explanation for why his report was late.

That image stayed with him despite an afternoon at the range and an evening fighting a giant squid thing that ate all his arrows, even the explosive ones. It kept him awake with a series of detailed fantasies about what might happen after a kiss and Clint hated his entire subconscious for that.

He was much too old for this kind of ridiculous, day-dreamy, overwrought _crush_. The problem was that it didn't matter how often he told himself that, there was still this silly flutter in the pit of his stomach every time he saw Coulson.

Of course Natasha figured it out almost immediately and her knowing looks and sly grins were not in any way helpful.

***

A few days later, Coulson was sent away on a solo mission and at first this seemed like a perfect solution. After all, if Clint didn't have to see Coulson and his quiet smiles and his eye crinkles then the thing he was feeling would fizzle away. It wasn't as though he'd done something really stupid like falling in love with his ex-handler because of a few not-kisses.

After a week, Clint was willing to concede in the privacy of his own head that maybe, just maybe, he missed Coulson. It was Natasha who found him brooding on that in the dark on top of the tower. She hugged him and called him an idiot and then sat with him through the night because that was what they did for each other.

Then she kicked his ass in training the next day, called him an idiot again and she might have gone on with her diatribe if they hadn't been interrupted by a junior agent sent by Fury to get them.

Clint knew something was wrong the moment he entered Fury's office and he was grateful to Natasha when she wordlessly brushed a finger over his wrist as she stood next to him in front of Fury's desk.

Fury frowned at them. "Agent Coulson's been injured."

For a moment, Clint's heart seemed to stutter and he felt sick. Flash-backs to the days when everyone had been told that Coulson was dead crowded his mind and it took a sharp jab from Natasha's elbow to pull him back to the conversation.

"-broken wrist and a haematoma on his spleen that is already healing with surgery," Fury was saying. "Nothing serious, but he's in a public hospital and we need to extract him without blowing everyone else on the operation."

"Sir, how did Agent Coulson get injured?" Natasha asked curiously.

"Car accident," Fury said.

"Wait, Coulson got taken out by a car crash?" Clint asked incredulously.

"Yeah, he's already pretty pissed about it." There was no smile on Fury's face but Clint could see a glint of humour in his eye. "There's no connection to the op, it was an idiot on his way home from a bar and Coulson was in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"You need us to provide a cover story for his extraction?" Natasha asked.

This time Fury did smile, just the hint of evil in it. "No, Agent Romanov. I just need Barton for this one."

Clint found out why Natasha wasn't needed when he read the briefing packet on the flight to a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. His cover, Kyle Bradley, was supposed to be engaged to Coulson's cover, Patrick Clement.

He had never believed in a higher power before but right now Clint did and that higher power was laughing its ass off at him.

***

It was only a small hospital so the first nurse that Clint talked to knew who Patrick Clement was and cooed over him when Clint introduced himself. She escorted him personally to the right room and pushed the door open, practically shoving him inside. Coulson was sitting in his hospital bed looking battered and irritated. There was a white cast on his arm and a cannula in the back of his unbroken wrist, although it wasn't attached to anything.

"What have you been doing to yourself, honey?" Clint said, emphasising the last word just in case Coulson was on the good drugs and needed a reminder of who he was supposed to be.

For a moment Coulson's eyes widened then he smiled ruefully, getting into his role, and said, "It's nothing, just a bit of a bump."

Clint nodded to the cast. "I don't call that a bit of a bump. I'm taking you home, no arguments."

The nurse was watching them with a grin. "You're fiancé is very masterful, Mr Clement."

"My fiancé likes to order people around," Coulson said, narrowing his eyes slightly. "He doesn't get to do it very often."

"Well, you should let him this time," she said, reading his chart. "Let him take care of you for a while. The doctor's signed your discharge orders, you've got your medication so let's get this cannula out and then he can take you home."

While the nurse efficiently did her job, Clint went to the other side of the bed and sat on the edge. Picking up Coulson's hand and lacing their fingers together was entirely for the benefit of their audience, obviously.

He wasn't sure what it meant when Coulson leaned over and brushed a kiss on his cheek. There was heavy stubble on Coulson's face and Clint had always preferred a clean-shaven man until right at that moment. The touch was brief but Clint’s heart sped up and he swore creatively in his head.

"Right, all done," the nurse announced perkily, gathering up her equipment in a metal dish. "You're good to go whenever you want. Did you bring any clothes, Mr...uh?"

"Bradley," Clint supplied. "Yeah, I brought some stuff."

"We had to cut him out of his suit," she said. "He seemed pretty upset about that."

"He's a bit of a clothes horse." Clint grinned at Coulson's outraged expression. "Never likes to be seen in anything that's not designer. Sorry, Pat, you'll have to wear my cast-offs until we get home. I didn't think you'd want to deal with all the buttons."

"I'll leave you two to discuss that," the nurse said, hurrying out of the room.

"Need any help?" Clint asked.

"I can manage," Coulson said and raised an eyebrow.

Clint flushed as he realised that he was still holding Coulson's hand. He released it quickly and stood, turning his back. There was the sound of rustling material and Clint swallowed, trying not to let his imagination go crazy.

Coulson seemed to take forever to dress but Clint resolutely did not offer to help again just in case he accepted.

Eventually there was a quiet sigh and Coulson said, "Kyle, can I get some help with my shoes?"

When Clint turned around, Coulson was sitting on the side of the bed glaring at his laces. Wordlessly, Clint knelt and began tightening and tying them. He had just finished when the nurse knocked and bustled back in.

"Oh, sorry, didn't mean to interrupt."

Clint started to rise and nearly fell over when Coulson leaned over to gently place a kiss on his temple.

"She's a mole," Coulson whispered before he straightened.

It explained a few things, like why she was lurking so obviously. If Coulson's targets suspected that he wasn't what he seemed to be then of course they would be keeping an eye on him even now.

"Let's get you out of here," Clint said quietly, hoping that his smile looked suitably sappy. "You look exhausted."

He stood up and solicitously helped Coulson to his feet. The arm that he wrapped around Coulson's waist was purely for show, obviously, and Clint managed not to show any surprise when Coulson draped an arm across his shoulder and leaned heavily.

The nurse followed as they slowly walked out of the hospital and even held open the door to Clint's rental while he lowered Coulson inside. As they drove away, she raised her wrist to her mouth.

"Amateur," Clint muttered.

Coulson looked exhausted, that part hadn't been a complete act, but a weary smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "They're not sophisticated but they're effective. You'll have to keep the act up until we're on the plane, I'm afraid."

There were three more chaste cheek pecks plus a whole lot of 'propping' before they got onto the plane. By the time the in-flight movie started and Coulson fell asleep with his head on Clint's shoulder, Clint had made a decision.

This was more than a pathetic crush. Apparently he was falling in love with his former handler no matter how hard he tried not to and the universe seemed determined to put them together. So the next time a mission forced Coulson to kiss him, Clint would be ready.

He would kiss Coulson back and make sure the kiss was unforgettable. If there was any chance that Coulson felt more than duty when he kissed Clint, he'd know that Clint was equally interested and they'd skip all that awkward "so, do you like me?" stuff completely. And if he didn't then it would be easy to pretend it had never happened because, hey, it was all part of the mission.

Clint briefly considered just asking Coulson out for coffee or something sensible but he dismissed the idea. It would be much too awkward, it could backfire easily on both of them and if Coulson turned him down then everything would be difficult and uncomfortable for months. Anyway, given the evidence of the last couple of months it wouldn’t be long before Clint got his next chance.

Of course, that meant it was another four months before an opportunity presented itself and Clint was even getting desperate enough to re-consider the coffee plan.


	5. Escape plan

Clint's mental countdown told him that it was two-hundred and seven days since the last time he woke up drugged and tied to a chair. Working with the Avengers did seem to be having a benefit in terms of the lack of kidnapping.

The chair he was sitting in was uncomfortable and bolted the floor. As usual.

This time, however, he was chained to the chair instead of strapped and although he couldn't slip his hands out of the chains, a couple of minutes with a lock pick would have him free. It paid to stay flexible. Not that he had a lock pick, but he could improvise if something came up.

Clint took in his surroundings as the fuzziness from the drugs wore off. Sunlight poured in from a window to his left that was secured with heavy metal bars that looked new but the door in from of him looked like it would open to a few good kicks. The room was hot and dusty, there were filing cabinets around the walls and the floor was covered by a worn carpet. It all gave the air of an office of some kind that hadn't been used as a prison until recently.

Amateur hour stuff but surprisingly effective, Clint decided as he flexed his wrists.

The drugs were wearing off quickly now, which meant that Clint's memory was starting to return. He could remember leaving SHIELD HQ and walking down the street, enjoying the sunshine. The barista at his usual coffee shop had messed up his order and given him a free muffin when she realised what had happened. Clint had been feeling quite cheerful about that because free muffins could brighten even the dullest day.

Then there was a confused image of an alley and a cloth over his mouth and Clint swore because he'd been taken out by the oldest trick in the book.

He hadn't been expecting trouble on a quick coffee run so he was in street-clothes and that meant only one gun (he couldn't feel it at the small of his back anymore) and a set of knives strapped to his legs just above his boots. He flexed his calves experimentally, felt the solid hilts, and was torn between being relieved and feeling disappointed that he had been taken out by such complete incompetents.

This was going to be one of those days where everything was about humiliation and the only thing that could possibly make it worse would be for Coulson to witness his most embarrassing kidnapping experience yet.

The door rattled and there was the sound of a key in the lock. Any hopes that Clint had been holding onto that he could somehow keep this away from Coulson were killed when Coulson was prodded into the room ahead of several armed men.

Clint plastered on his cockiest grin anyway. "Hey, boss. Fancy meeting you here."

Coulson's hands were bound in front of him and there was a bruise turning purple on his jaw. One of the men who followed him in, a short guy with greasy black hair and a week's worth of stubble, pointed at Clint.

"He really your boyfriend?" the guy asked. "Because I gotta say, he's calling you boss and that just ain't right if you know what I mean."

Coulson shrugged. "It's a private joke."

"Kinky." Stubble smirked. "You got one minute. No funny business. _Mr Clement_."

Clint had no idea what was going on but he could make a couple of educated guesses. It sounded like someone had figured out Coulson's cover and gone after him, which meant that Clint's kidnapping was somehow connected. And they didn't believe that either of them were who they said they were, which wasn't surprising given that Clint had been kidnapped on the other side of the country from where Kyle Bradley was supposed to be.

Well, this was a cluster-fuck of epic proportions.

There was no clue to what Coulson was thinking but he held up his hands and gestured at the ropes binding them. Stubble Guy rolled his eyes and shook his head.

Smart guy. He obviously knew what a stupid idea it was to underestimate Coulson. Clint suspected that it was a bad sign that he was getting the warm fuzzies from seeing people acknowledge Coulson's badassery.

"You were the one on fire for proof that your boy is OK," Stubble Guy said, looking at his watch ostentatiously. "No skin off my nose if you don't get your touching good-bye."

Coulson moved towards Clint's chair and leaned down. Clint swallowed hard as he met Coulson's eyes and held his breath. There was nothing in Coulson's eyes, no hint about how he felt, and Clint tried to stay equally impassive although he'd never been as good at it.

Then Coulson leaned in closer and kissed him.

Clint's heart hammered in his chest as he closed his eyes and sank into the kiss. It wasn't tentative or chaste. If anyone had been hoping to catch Coulson in a lie about their relationship, this kiss wouldn’t prove it. His lips were hard against Clint's and it seemed only a moment before Clint was opening his mouth and sucking Coulson's tongue in. This was what he had been waiting for and Clint could barely think now that his chance had arrived. Coulson tasted the way he remembered, of mint and coffee and something else that Clint couldn't identify but he was determined to chase it down.

Without conscious thought, Clint strained at the chains holding his wrists to the chair. He wanted to touch and pull and hold, feel more of Coulson than his lips and the hot breath skimming his cheek.

When something hard and metallic nudged against his tongue, it took Clint a couple of seconds to realise that there might be another purpose to the kiss. Coulson's tongue pushed against his and Clint felt the shape of a tiny key.

Some of the lust haze burned away at the reminder that they had an audience and he carefully pushed the key to one side, holding it between his teeth and cheek.

Coulson started to pull away and for a moment Clint forgot everything again, straining to follow and keep the kiss going. He was rewarded with Coulson trailing kisses along his jaw to his ear.

"Wait for my signal," Coulson whispered. "Extraction point is two miles north." 

There was one more kiss, a lingering press of lips together, before Coulson straightened up. Clint opened his eyes and caught a glimpse of Coulson's eyes as he turned away. He looked slightly stunned and his pupils were so huge there was barely a rim of blue around them.

Someone cleared their throat uncomfortably.

Stubble Guy raised his eyebrows looking impressed. "Guess you weren't lying. Fine. Boy stays alive as long as you cooperate."

Coulson nodded brusquely and allowed the men with guns to prod him out of the room. Stubble Guy stayed long enough to mime firing a gun at Clint with a wide smirk and then he followed.

Clint waited until he was sure that everyone was gone and then shifted the key until he could clench it between his teeth.

"Idiots," he muttered as he set to work on his chains.

Somewhere out there, Clint knew that Coulson was arranging for some kind of fucking amazing escape plan and he was going to be ready for it.


	6. Not a mission

Clint's report on the kidnapping was a masterpiece of carefully vague wording and thesaurus abuse. Finding a way to explain how Coulson had passed him a key to his chains without actually stating "The man can do amazing things with his tongue" took over an hour of careful drafting and shredded report outlines.

When he finished, Clint read it back feeling quite proud. He'd succeeded in making Coulson look like the epitome of a professional agent and even Clint's kidnapping no longer sounded like something out of a bad spy novel.

It helped that Coulson had somehow arranged for half the office-building they were being held in to explode without damaging anything else. That had given Clint plenty of good material so he'd been able to gloss over how he'd actually escaped.

Clint was itching to get the details on how Coulson had arranged the explosions.

The kiss was still on his mind as he clipped the report into a folder and labelled the cover neatly. It could have just been for show, a really good, amazing show, if Clint hadn't seen Coulson's face as they parted. Nobody could fake the blown pupils or the mixture of desire and surprise that Clint had seen. Coulson might be second only to Natasha when it came to acting and unreadable faces, but Clint was pretty damn sure that for a moment he had seen the real Coulson.

He just didn't have the first idea of what to do about it. Marching into Coulson's office and kissing him senseless sounded like a fine idea in Clint's head, but there was always the tiny possibility that Clint was misreading things badly and how awkward would that be?

A knock at the door startled Clint out of his contemplation and he dropped the report, which slid under his desk. His tiny office was only just large enough for a desk, chair and filing cabinet and the space between the desk and the wall was barely enough for him to pull the chair out completely. Sometimes he suspected that this office was his punishment for filing a form incorrectly. It was the kind of thing that some of the clerks in the admin department would do.

Nobody visited him except for Natasha so Clint didn't think twice about wriggling under the desk to search for the report as he yelled for his visitor to come in.

The door opened, he heard footsteps that he recognised and Clint froze. In all his imagined scenarios for their first proper meeting after the whole kiss thing, Clint hadn't pictured this. Kneeling under his desk with his ass in the air seemed a bit too blatant even for him.

There was a long pause and then the door closed quietly. Clint grabbed the report, took a deep breath and shuffled out from under the desk. He risked a quick look as he struggled to lever himself up with the chair in the way and he'd been right in his assessment: Coulson was leaning against the door with an amused expression.

Clint held up the report and waved it vaguely, more aware than he wanted to be of the dust on his knees and hands and the way that he was still only half-standing thanks to the fucking chair.

"What is that?" Coulson asked.

"My report?" Clint said, collapsing into the chair rather than trying to continue fighting it for space on the floor. "Sir."

"Huh." Coulson gave him a sharp, assessing look and held out his hand.

Clint reluctantly surrendered the report, which now looked sadly tattered and dirty after its time on the floor. The carpet under Coulson's desk was probably a model of pristine cleanliness.

Coulson flipped through the pages, pausing at key passages, and Clint shifted uncomfortably. Maybe he should have proof read it another couple of dozen times?

"Barton, while I appreciate the promptness of your report and the tact you have shown in it, I have to ask." Coulson looked up. "Why?"

"Why what?" Clint shrugged, a little annoyed with himself for the sick feeling in his stomach. "Why did I get kidnapped? Fuck if I know."

"The nurse." Coulson said. "The one planted at the hospital. She recognised you on the news last week and contacted her bosses."

"Shit."

"I've already discussed it with Director Fury and you won't be going undercover anymore but that isn't what I asked."

"Why is this report ready when you're still waiting for six other ones?" Clint guessed. 

Coulson nodded and Clint winced. "Seemed like a good idea until I gave it to you and got the third degree?"

There was a long pause where Coulson just looked at him with an unreadable expression and then he said, "Would you like to get some coffee?"

Clint blinked, thrown by the abrupt subject shift. "I, ah, isn't it a bit late for coffee? I'm pretty sure the canteen closed a while ago."

He knew that it was a stupid thing to say, but Clint didn't think it deserved the pained sigh that Coulson gave him.

"That was a euphemism," Coulson said, a hint of a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. "Much like the ones you employed in this report and in the one for the cactus creature a few months ago."

"Oh." Clint swallowed. "I thought you didn't remember that."

"It took a couple of days before the memories came back. And if they hadn't, a video file taken from Stark's suit was mysteriously emailed to me last week." A hint of colour flushed Coulson's cheeks. "I thought that you were trying to let me down gently."

"If I'd had any idea that you meant anything by it other than being out of your mind from fever..." Clint trailed off, not entirely where that sentence had been going.

He didn't think it had been going anywhere that could possibly end well.

"Barton." Coulson paused and cleared his throat. "Clint. Coffee."

Clint hesitated because seriously, he was never this lucky. He'd been waiting and thinking and _wanting_ for months and now here was his chance and he wasn't entirely sure that it was real. His crappy chair and desk felt pretty real, but Coulson was standing in his office apparently offering him everything he wanted and that kind of thing never happened to him.

"Clint?" Coulson said, starting to look worried.

"I'm just..." Clint took a deep breath. "Are you sure?"

There was a gentle smile on Coulson's face as he took the half-pace necessary to stand by Clint's chair so he could swing it round, place his hands on the armrests and lean down.

Coulson's warm breath caressed Clint's lips as he said, "You're the most impossible man I've ever met."

Clint opened his mouth to reply but Coulson was already kissing him and that was just perfect.


End file.
